


on the tip of my tongue

by mother_hearted



Series: you count up all my scars (crumble them into stars) [21]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Affection, Communication, Established Relationship, M/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25294297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mother_hearted/pseuds/mother_hearted
Summary: Dimitri is a balm, cool and soothing like aloe on the nights Claude’s brain overheats from racing thoughts. He’s warm too, comforting and lingering like his favorite spiced stew he hasn’t eaten since his grandmother passed.In the face of such sheer love and adoration, Claude melts and becomes as useful as a puddle.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Series: you count up all my scars (crumble them into stars) [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692022
Comments: 16
Kudos: 115





	on the tip of my tongue

Claude prides himself on being adaptable. To survive in a world he doesn’t fit in, he must be fluid and quick to find the cracks he needs to slip through to live another day. Always being prepared to act has its… pitfalls. His feet and mouth have learned to move at the first sign of danger but no man’s improvisational act is perfect. For all his moments of ingenuity, Claude has left a number of situations with all the grace of a stumbling drunk. 

The trick is he’s usually the only one who knows when he says one word too many or when his questions lead to unexpected answers. 

But then he falls in love with Dimitri and all of a sudden the once noble prince turned into his noble husband is peering behind the curtain of Claude’s act and he can’t figure out how to make him stop. 

The problem, among many, is Dimitri never intends to catch him off guard. There’s no plan to sabotage or anticipate, and with no plan to prepare for Claude is left waffling hot eared and as embarrassed as a sticky fingered child with the dessert they were caught eating. 

Three years together and Claude is still learning how to be _romantic_. He never planned on such a thing, never imagined any paramour before Dimitri and he still feels like he’s scrambling. Left scowling over his desk some days when his thoughts stray down that particular path, knowing he could inherit a whole library of literature about love and read until his eyes bleed but he’ll never be like Dimitri, who was practically born with a book of love poems in his mouth in place of a silver spoon. 

It’s ridiculously unfair and for a man who prides himself on the sharpness of his mind, it’s mortifying to be unable to grasp a narrative script that’s been around for eons, since the fates flooded the world with beings who took their first breath. But why wouldn’t it be like this? When everything about Claude’s life is atypical to most. 

Dimitri is a balm, cool and soothing like aloe on the nights Claude’s brain overheats from racing thoughts. He’s warm too, comforting and lingering like his favorite spiced stew he hasn’t eaten since his grandmother passed. 

In the face of such sheer love and adoration, Claude melts and becomes as useful as a puddle.

He hates falling behind. 

He hates being sneaked up on. 

He wishes he could dig up his agitation and insecurity from the boneyard of his trauma and offer them some lemonade so they could finally chill out.

The most devious thing Dimitri has ever done is make Claude promise to try and speak honestly, plainly, no curtains or veils hiding his words. They’re doing it together, a team effort, but it doesn't escape Claude’s notice that Dimitri has the advantage. He has nourished the softness inside of him despite the violence that threatened to snuff it out. Claude didn’t have the same opportunity, he was forced to bury it the same way as his other childhood memories…

Yet Khalid had a chance to be nothing more than a toddler, soft and eager like clay, and it’s that truth Claude clings to, knowing there was a time he was more than this: a man with a back up plan to his back up plan. No straight answers. Unknowable. Unpredictable. 

He wonders too often how Dimitri could’ve fallen for him, when Claude went out of his way to make it impossible. 

He wonders too, when he’ll stop questioning it, when he still smiles private and small at the silver knotted band on his finger. It fits perfectly under his gloves and it reminds him Dimitri’s arms will be waiting for him when he sees him again. 

Dimitri.

He slumps over his desk with a sigh and ignores the clatter of an empty ink canister rolling to the floor. 

“You’ve ruined me, love.”

The rest of the evening blurs with the reading and signing of multiple reports, reviewing expenses, and upcoming summons. He’s stiff when he finally stands, wincing at the pulls in too many muscles. A life at a desk really does age you. He supposes he’ll take this over the decade the war put on him. 

He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding when he slips back into his bedroom and sees Dimitri settled in for the night, stretched out on top of their covers, reading in bed. His hair is still damp… and Claude feels childish disappointment at missing the chance to soak with him. 

_Gods, I’ve grown pathetic._

“There you are, darling.”

“Hey.”

Claude’s smile is an easy thing, even easier when he receives his kiss in greeting. He stays where he’s leaned over Dimitri, moving to kiss his neck, tease his lips around the ruby stud in his ear.

“Ah,” Dimitri pushes at him playfully. “I’m not in the mood to be riled tonight.”

“No riling!” Claude stands up to loosen his cravat. “I bet I’ll drop off first tonight anyway.” He sits on the edge of their bed to take off his boots. The noise he makes upon sitting is one he never expected to make until he was _at least_ forty. 

“Are you all right?”

“Oh yeah. Getting an unwanted glimpse into my future is all.”

He hears Dimitri snort before settling by Claude’s side, weight resting on his elbow.

“What of the man in my bed now, can I do anything for him?”

And Claude’s damnable brain and tongue don’t confer with each other at all. He means to sound breezy and light, wave off the moment and hide like he used to be so good at but he doesn’t. It’s all too honest and real when he asks, “You want to do something nice for me?” A blush creeps on his cheeks and he immediately wishes neither of them were too tired. It’s always easier to ask for Dimitri to take care of him when they have sex, because that’s a part of it, not something he _needs_ to ask for when Dimitri will hold and kiss him no matter what.

“Yes.” Dimitri’s hand moves to make a home on Claude’s knee and Claude doesn’t feel trapped by his weight, not like he used to fear. Instead he feels… anchored. “Should I rub your shoulders? Or perhaps your back is bothering you.”

“Uh.” 

“Or your feet.” 

Dimitri patiently lays out his options and Claude manages a sheepish smile. “Wouldn’t mind you tearing up my heels so long as you patch them back up for me.”

“You know that’s not what happens.”

“It makes for a fun illustration though.”

Claude wiggles his toes in Dimitri’s face only to end up squawking when Dimitri shoves him onto his back. The rough housing gets him chuckling but then he feels Dimitri’s big hands squeezing and warming up the frame of his foot, and Claude is back to feeling timid and small, unused to being handled gently without a price looming overhead. 

He knows better than to look for any fangs hidden in Dimitri’s mouth, knows the only thing he would find is what he sees now. Dimitri earnestly concentrating on massaging his feet, thumbs scrubbing around ligaments and tendons. Helping ease the tension carried in the soles and arches of his feet. For no reason other than he wants Claude to be relaxed. To be happy. 

Face warm and throat uncomfortably closed off, he can only answer Dimitri’s questions with quiet hums, blinking away moisture clinging to the corners of his eyes. When Dimitri says Claude is working hard, his eyes close shut but it’s not enough to keep the tears from rolling down his face. Silently crying, he remembers vividly how times have changed. In the early days of their relationship when Dimitri was in his position, dry crying while Claude caressed his body for the first time, baring every scar he owned to Claude. 

He only started crying real tears a year ago. It stings more than he remembered. He doesn’t want Dimitri to stop touching him. Loving him. Forever.

All he has are clumsy vulnerable words but Dimitri deserves more than Claude’s silence, deserves to know how important and special he is too. And Claude won’t get any better at this kind of talking unless he keeps trying. 

“Dima…”

“Mm? Am I squeezing too tight?”

”No. I mean, you are, but it’s just right, for me.” He stumbles around his words but Dimitri smiles at him, unbothered by his clumsy tongue. “You’re just right for me. Come up here and squeeze me too tight?”

“I can do that.”

 _Forever?_ Claude can’t say, unable to be so obvious even when he can taste his tears on his top lip. Sinks instead into Dimitri’s embrace and shivers all over at the strength of his embrace. It presses just a little air out of his lungs. It’s perfect. 

“You’re perfect,” he whispers into the skin of Dimitri’s neck and he feels Dimitri grow still. Knows intimately Dimitri is violently disagreeing with him inside his body but takes pity on Claude's exhausted state, doesn’t refute him. He switches tracks, practicing being brave again when he says, “Thanks for being mine.”

_Thanks for wanting me._

“Always.”

It sounds so easy when Dimitri says it.

Maybe one day it will come that easy to Claude too.

Wrapped in Dimitri’s arms before he truly settles in for the night, he allows himself to dream of a future where his heart is left to sit just a little more on his sleeve.


End file.
